Physical fitness is an increasingly important past time. Of late, it has become more important as rates of obesity, heart disease, adult onset diabetes and other health related issues have increased to keep pace with the ready availability of fast food and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
As such, exercise technology is highly developed and workout routines are becoming increasingly tailored to target goals. One of the more popular methods—isometric exercises—is an increasingly popular training method in gymnasiums across the country. These exercises concentrate on specific muscles or muscle groups. This is particularly important for competitive body-building, and much of the equipment found in a gymnasium is targeted towards these types of exercises. As such, gym-goers tend to over utilize this type of equipment. This overuse may lead to the overtraining of certain muscles while under training other associated muscles, increasing the risk of debilitating injury.
While these exercises tend to focus on movement specific strength, competitive sports such as mixed-martial-arts, for example, tend to value what may be termed functional strength. Functional strength involves the utilization of muscles that are not exercised in static conditions. Instead, increasing functional strength generally requires a destabilization of the exercise movement and generally involves muscles, such as those associated with the core and hips, not usually associated with static exercise movements.
Various exercise apparatuses have been previously known to provide functional strength exercise. The shake weight, for example, utilizes a motorized dumbbell that oscillates with respect to a handle. However, it is expensive, difficult to maintain and does not provide sufficient variability of resistance.
It is therefore desirable to provide an exercise apparatus which may overcome these disadvantages.